


In Flashes

by Valmouth



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Law & Order
Genre: Daddy Issues, Doppelganger, M/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-08
Updated: 2012-11-08
Packaged: 2017-11-18 06:19:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/557841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valmouth/pseuds/Valmouth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In hindsight, this is his fault. Like it’s his fault for skipping out on the masque. Like it’s his fault for picking this bar. It’s his fault. He remembers this, clings to it as he lets himself be picked up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Flashes

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own no rights to these two fictional characters, or to the respective shows/ creative universes they are derived from. I mean no offence by sharing this and make no money from it.

It happens in a flash.

He’s not meant to be in that bar; he’s meant to be in a hotel somewhere, with a dress-up mask on his face and an actress on his arm. He’s supposed to smile too wide and laugh too much; gesture carelessly with perpetually full glasses of champagne while making idle white noise in a room full of other people doing exactly the same thing.

But he’s tired, and so he’s not there. He’s here, at the bar, losing himself in the one beer he’s using to drown his insurmountable sorrows when he looks up, and there he is.

For a moment his heart stops.

For a moment he’s eight again, and there’s a warm, comfortable weight pinning his legs while he throws an uninterested glance at the pearls held in one capable hand.

For a moment all he sees is his father.

And then the little twitches and differences separate out.

He turns his eyes away and blinks, rubs them heavily. He’s been running on fumes for a week, now, chasing evidence on Gambol’s prostitution ring. He’s exhausted. He’s lonely.

And that, he tells himself, is all it is. His mind playing tricks on him. Just some slight resemblance.

But his eyes are drawn back. Constantly and eternally.

Same shape of the face, he thinks, same shoulders. Same eyes.

He’s caught staring all too easily and he’s too much of a bastard these days not to hide in plain sight. Raises his glass in an obnoxious gesture, smirk twitching at the corners of his mouth.

In hindsight, this is his fault. Like it’s his fault for skipping out on the masque. Like it’s his fault for picking this bar. It’s his fault.

He remembers this, clings to it as he lets himself be picked up. Lets himself be whisked into a taxi. Yet another bar. Staring, and trying not to stare. Failing enough that he ends up in an apartment not his own, hesitating in the doorway.

“Come in,” Mike Cutter says, and tosses his jacket over the back of a broken-in couch.

A good jacket; not expensive, but decent. Fits him. He catalogues this, even as Mike’s hands reach for his tie.

“Come on,” Mike says, voice low and rough.

His father’s voice.

So similar anyway that he doesn’t care. His father’s voice and his father’s hands and this is possibly, he thinks dazedly, the most perverted thing he could possibly do. Sleep with a man because he reminds him of his dead father.

But the desire is to touch, hold, pretend. And if this is the only way he can do it – the only way – he’ll do it.

It’s been so long.

His body’s never had any trouble getting comfort where it can find it and Mike Cutter is warm, smooth skin and long, slender lines. Shorter than he is, and that’s not right. It drags his attention away, makes it harder to pretend. So he slides down and down, taking the sheets with him, and then there’s a cock in his face but that’s fine, he’s a fair guy and he’s sucked before.

He’s been on the streets before. He’s tried this, though he never did it for money.

“Jesus, you’ve got a great mouth,” Mike Cutter grunts, and strokes his thumb over the stretched, taunt skin at the corner of his mouth.

He whines, pushes into the touch and pushes further down Mike’s cock just to get closer, to rub his face against whatever he can reach of Mike’s abdomen.

And then he’s remembering even more. The only thing he never forgets.

He can barely move fast enough and Mike lets out a whimper and clutches tight at his shoulders as he pulls his mouth off Mike’s cock and pushes up again. Lays his ear down on Mike’s chest and there, just there, the heart beat.

But it’s all wrong, it’s too fast. His father’s heart was always slower. Calmer. Stronger. This beat is frenetic and tumbles and roars in his ear and Mike’s fisting a hand in his hair and he shifts, because he needs to keep Mike from realising what’s going on.

Though Mike probably knows.

He’s said, “You look like someone I used to know,” and Mike said, “I hope it’s someone nice”.

Nice.

Best person he ever knew. The man he wanted to be. The man who was, at one time, his whole world.

And then Mike is fumbling with drawers and cursing and muttering and pulling out a condom and lube and he knows, really, this is what they’re here for.

It’s all automatic from this point in. His body knows what to do. It doesn’t matter that he’s never done this with a man. He’s done it with a girl and he’s had it done to him; he knows how it works.

It doesn’t prepare him for the tight grip of muscle around his fingers, doesn’t prepare him for how Mike groans, short and high and filthy, back arching and neck stretched and he can’t help himself from burying his nose in the juncture between neck and shoulder.

Delicate, delicate skin. He could think of a thousand ways to break this man. This slender, ordinary man with the surgeon’s hands. Instead he bites and Mike twists under him and shudders, claws at the sheets.

“You’ve been on the front lines somewhere,” Mike says. His pupils are huge but he’s blinking, focusing.

Far too much awareness. Too much intelligence.

He pulls two fingers out, and slams three back in, twists them hard against the prostrate and Mike actually bucks and howls.

Clamps a hand down on the base of Mike’s cock and he’s almost gone too far but now Mike’s not thinking of his scars, not thinking of his body honed by too much exertion and too little rest.

Mike smells like musk and sweat and faint traces of cologne put on too long ago to linger. He has shadows under his eyes and there’s a ragged sense of despair driving his desperation.

He’s trying to pretend too, he realises, just as Mike says, “God, I’m ready. Now. Come on.”

He takes his fingers out and puts the condom on. Hooks his shoulders under Mike’s knees and lines up.

And then waits.

“What?” Mike asks, and opens his eyes.

“Bruce,” he says, “Remember?”

“Well, then, Bruce, would you like an engraved invitation to fuck me?”

It’s the first real smile he’s worn in what feels like months. Genuine. Wide. Too many teeth but it’s reaching his eyes, cracking something in his chest he hadn’t known was too hard and too heavy.

“Be one more for the mantelpiece,” he says, and then he’s sinking in and it’s like coming home.

Mike’s tight and hot and perfect, and when Bruce starts a slow steady thrust, Mike arches again as best he can and keens. Soft and low. Barely there sound but enough to make Bruce’s abdomen clench.

“Faster,” Mike says, “I won’t break.”

He speeds up, hips snapping.

Mike’s older, but he’s limber, and he folds gracefully when Bruce leans down, forces the angle and catches his lips in a kiss that’s two parts mess and saliva and one part pure need.

Mike’s hands thread into his hair and the sprawl, legs wide in the air, is highly undignified but it seems like Mike gets off on that. He’s writhing and bucking and meeting each thrust and then he’s reaching for Bruce’s hand and he’s sucking a finger into his mouth, dark eyes wicked and half-glazed.

The urge to crook his finger and just tear into the soft skin is almost too great to bear. To destroy this thing that is and is not. To force the difference, so he knows better than to hope.

There is no hope. His father is dead. He sat by the body and watched it cool. This is Mike.

Mike who looks like his father.

When it’s over, he lays his head down on Mike’s chest, wrung out and spent and he has to move, he thinks dizzily, but he’ll move in a minute. Just one more minute.

His father’s heartbeat thunders in time to his own, and those capable surgeon’s hands stroke his hair and his neck and his shoulders. Gentle him. Soothe him.

“Hey, it’s fine. You’re fine. It was good.”

It was good.

It was good and he’s so tired. Sleepy for the first time in weeks. His brain’s shut off for the first time in weeks. And Mike Cutter is not his father but he’s warm and his skin is soft and he bends without breaking.

Bruce closes his eyes, and lets the heartbeat lull him to sleep.

 


End file.
